When Arsenal Win the League, Who Will Finish Fourth?

The day that all Gooners look forward to is drawing closer as we come to the business end of the season.

I am of course referring to St. Totteringham's Day, when we celebrate the fact that our local rivals can no longer finish ahead of us in the league.

Sometimes it comes very early and in other seasons it can be just a little nervous for us Arsenal fans, as in 2006 when we only managed to overtake them on the last day of the season, thanks to a 4-2 win over Wigan for us and some dodgy lasagna for them.

The Spuds have 9 games left and they are 12 points behind us which in my opinion is an insurmountable lead. I think we would only need to win a maximum of three games to ensure that we finish ahead of them.

To be honest, I would be surprised if they even managed to finish in the top four and make the Champions league qualifiers.

If that does happen, though, the chances are that they will lose out in that qualifying round and England will only have three representatives in the Champions league.

The race for fourth place became even more interesting last night when Liverpool beat Portsmouth 4-1 to move back to fifth in the table. They may have played more games than the other clubs fighting for fourth place, but they cannot be ruled out just yet.

Man City are probably the favourites to finish fourth at the moment but in my opinion it could go to any one of the four teams in the hunt.

Birmingham and Everton are probably just too far off the pace to make it but The Spuds, Liverpool, Man City and Aston Villa will all be hoping to make the position their own.

The Spuds seem to be playing well at the moment, but I will be surprised if they don't blow it as usual.

Liverpool have all the experience necessary to put the results together to make things difficult for the others, and in Gerrard and Torres they have two players who should be able to get them the results they need.

Man City have some very good players, too, and they showed exactly what they can do when they won 4-2 away to Chelsea.

I heard an interesting stat about Aston Villa under Martin O'Neill yesterday that made me think it will be very difficult for them to keep up their challenge.

If what I heard is to be believed, Villa have never won a game under his stewardship in the month of March. With four league games left this month, they will have to change that statistic if they are to stand a chance of finishing fourth.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that Arsenal have gained more points away from home than any other team in the Premier League.

We have 27 points from 15 games and we have scored 30 goals in those 15 games. So much for the people that say we are a soft touch and don't travel well.

We may be only marginally ahead of Chelsea and "Manure," but we do have the best away record in the league.

Our current first-choice striker spoke about our ability to score so many late goals recently, and he said the players won't stop believing that they will get the goals they need until the game is over.

He said that the players knew before the Hull game that they would have to be patient as Hull would look to put a lot of men behind the ball when they weren't in possession, and the red card only made them do that even more.

He also said that Hull defended very well but, thankfully for us, not quite well enough in the end.

Since the back to back defeats to "Manure" and Chelsea, we have won 5 games in a row in the league and we have scored 11 goals and conceded three.

We may not have been the most convincing in all of those games but with Cesc and Song available again and Gallas to follow them hopefully I think our form will improve as the belief in the squad grows.

We have a home game on Saturday against West Ham and with "Manure" playing at home to Liverpool on Sunday and Chelsea travelling to Blackburn on Sunday too there is a chance that we could move even closer to our ultimate goal this weekend.

After that, Chelsea have a midweek game at Portsmouth and then the next weekend we travel to Birmingham on the Saturday afternoon at the same time that Chelsea play at home to Aston Villa.

Later that day, "Manure" travel to Bolton and there is potential for a change in the league standings from any of these games. Let's hope Arsenal win their two games and we can see how the other two teams react to the pressure we put on them.

Finally for today the obvious good news from yesterday was that Phil Brown was sacked by Hull as they look to avoid relegation.

I'm delighted to see the back of him and the Premier League will be a better place without that self-obsessed lying toe rag.

Here's a good goal against The Spuds by a man who always seems to be on our side.

See You Tomorrow.